17 pages • 34 minutes read
Richard WilburThe Writer
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1969A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context
Richard Wilbur drew from his own life experience to create “The Writer.” Although the autobiographical poem wasn’t published until 1976, it was written much earlier when the poet’s daughter, Ellen Wilbur, was still a child. When she was five years old, Ellen received a typewriter from her parents and began her writing journey. This would have been in the late ‘40s to early ‘50s (Ellen Wilbur was born in 1943).
Growing up in a successful literary household, Ellen’s creativity was nurtured from an early age; however, after briefly experimenting with poetry, she turned her attention to short prose fiction. Richard Wilbur has been quoted as saying, “From the first, we knew Ellen had a gift, and told her so. But I don’t think she has learned anything from me—she’s a natural writer. She has a perfect sense of narrative structure that I don’t have at all; it amazes me” (Harvard Magazine, 2008).
While she didn’t become a household name or find widespread recognition the way her father did, Ellen Wilbur built a successful career as a short fiction writer. Her work appeared in a range of prestigious literary magazines including Ploughshares and The Harvard Review, and she published a full-length collection of short stories: Wind and Birds and Human Voices. In “The Writer,” the reader can glimpse the initial conception of these ideas as a young writer is born.
Richard Wilbur often drew from his own life, and in particular his family, while crafting his work. His poem “Boy at the Window” was written about his son, Chris Wilbur (the poet once mortified his son by visiting his school and reading the poem to his classroom). His work allows the reader a small glimpse into a private world full of potential.
Literary Context
Richard Wilbur was actively writing throughout the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, with his final collection being released in 2010. This put him at the intersection of several literary movements, although in general Wilbur favored the earlier, formal poetic structures over the movement toward the free-verse Confessionalism that became popular throughout the 1960s and beyond. “The Writer” is unusual for Wilbur in that it doesn’t utilize formal rhyme or meter, and reads as a fairly straightforward story from the poet’s life.
Throughout his career, Wilbur crossed paths with many contemporary poets, including his predecessor Robert Frost, as well as Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, and Sylvia Plath. Later in life, Wilbur would go on to teach the work of these poets to students and found himself at the peculiar crossroads of viewing these poets through both an academic and a personal lens. Richard Wilbur’s poem “Cottage Street, 1953” was inspired by an afternoon of tea and conversation with Sylvia Plath, her mother Aurelia Plath, and a family friend. Despite its later publication and its connection to the famous free-verse poet, this poem follows Wilbur’s traditional style of regular rhyme and structure.
Wilbur is often compared to Robert Frost, another long-lived poet who, despite his adherence to traditional form, resonated with a modern audience. Though Frost was nearly 50 years older than Wilbur, the two did connect early in Wilbur’s career, and Frost’s work became a significant influence on Wilbur’s creative style. Much later in life, Wilbur would be honored with the Robert Frost Medal for lifetime achievement.
